Direct Reference, Indexicality, and Propositional Attitudes

Direct Reference, Indexicality, and Propositional Attitudes PDF Author: Wolfgang Künne
Publisher: Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications
ISBN: 9781575860701
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
This volume is a compilation of revised versions of papers presented at a conference held in spring 1994 at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) in Bielefeld, Germany.

Direct Reference, Indexicality, and Propositional Attitudes

Direct Reference, Indexicality, and Propositional Attitudes PDF Author: Wolfgang Künne
Publisher: Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications
ISBN: 9781575860701
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
This volume is a compilation of revised versions of papers presented at a conference held in spring 1994 at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) in Bielefeld, Germany.

Direct Reference

Direct Reference PDF Author: Francois Recanati
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631206347
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
This volume puts forward a distinct new theory of direct reference, blending insights from both the Fregean and the Russellian traditions, and fitting the general theory of language understanding used by those working on the pragmatics of natural language

Reference and Referring

Reference and Referring PDF Author: William P. Kabasenche
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262305119
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
Original essays on reference and referring by leading scholars that combine breadth of coverage with thematic unity. These fifteen original essays address the core semantic concepts of reference and referring from both philosophical and linguistic perspectives. After an introductory essay that casts current trends in reference and referring in terms of an ongoing dialogue between Fregean and Russellian approaches, the book addresses specific topics, balancing breadth of coverage with thematic unity. The contributors, all leading or emerging scholars, address trenchant neo-Fregean challenges to the direct reference position; consider what positive claims can be made about the mechanism of reference; address the role of a theory of reference within broader theoretical context; and investigate other kinds of linguistic expressions used in referring activities that may themselves be referring expressions. The topical unity and accessibility of the essays, the stage-setting introductory essay, and the comprehensive index combine to make Reference and Referring, along with the other books in the Topics in Contemporary Philosophy series, appropriate for use in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses.

Reference without Referents

Reference without Referents PDF Author: R. M. Sainsbury
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191529222
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Reference is a central topic in philosophy of language, and has been the main focus of discussion about how language relates to the world. R. M. Sainsbury sets out a new approach to the concept, which promises to bring to an end some long-standing debates in semantic theory. There is a single category of referring expressions, all of which deserve essentially the same kind of semantic treatment. Included in this category are both singular and plural referring expressions ('Aristotle', 'The Pleiades'), complex and non-complex referring expressions ('The President of the USA in 1970', 'Nixon'), and empty and non-empty referring expressions ('Vulcan', 'Neptune'). Referring expressions are to be described semantically by a reference condition, rather than by being associated with a referent. In arguing for these theses, Sainsbury's book promises to end the fruitless oscillation between Millian and descriptivist views. Millian views insist that every name has a referent, and find it hard to give a good account of names which appear not to have referents, or at least are not known to do so, like ones introduced through error ('Vulcan'), ones where it is disputed whether they have a bearer ('Patanjali') and ones used in fiction. Descriptivist theories require that each name be associated with some body of information. These theories fly in the face of the fact names are useful precisely because there is often no overlap of information among speakers and hearers. The alternative position for which the book argues is firmly non-descriptivist, though it also does not require a referent. A much broader view can be taken of which expressions are referring expressions: not just names and pronouns used demonstratively, but also some complex expressions and some anaphoric uses of pronouns. Sainsbury's approach brings reference into line with truth: no one would think that a semantic theory should associate a sentence with a truth value, but it is commonly held that a semantic theory should associate a sentence with a truth condition, a condition which an arbitrary state of the world would have to satisfy in order to make the sentence true. The right analogy is that a semantic theory should associate a referring expression with a reference condition, a condition which an arbitrary object would have to satisfy in order to be the expression's referent. Lucid and accessible, and written with a minimum of technicality, Sainsbury's book also includes a useful historical survey. It will be of interest to those working in logic, mind, and metaphysics as well as essential reading for philosophers of language.

Empty Representations

Empty Representations PDF Author: Manuel García-Carpintero
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191502588
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
It is the linguistic job of singular terms to pick out the objects that we think or talk about. But what about singular terms that seem to fail to designate anything, because the objects they refer to don't exist? We can employ these terms in meaningful thought and talk, which suggests that they are succeeding in fulfilling their representational task. A team of leading experts presents new essays on the much-debated problem of empty reference and thought. In the 1960s and 1970s Keith Donnellan, David Kaplan, Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam initiated a revolution in the then standard conception of reference—a concept at the core of philosophical inquiry. The repercussions of the revolution, particularly felt in metaphysics and epistemology, were soon refined by other influential writers such as Tyler Burge, Gareth Evans, and John Perry. They argued that some linguistic and mental representations have contents individuated by what they are about—by ordinary referents of expressions such as proper names, indexicals, definite descriptions and common nouns, i.e. by planets, people or natural kinds. The view was at odds with a central philosophical presumption at that time: that cognitive and linguistic access to objective reality is indirect and accidental, mediated by general descriptive characterizations, the only constitutive semantic feature of the expressions; hence its ontological and epistemological repercussions. A turning-point in the debate about how linguistic and mental representation reach external contents concerned the nature of empty mental and linguistic representations, framed by means of the very same expressions crucially invoked in the Donnellan-Kaplan-Kripke-Putnam arguments. The papers in this volume address different aspects of reference and thought about the (apparently) non-existent.

Superelements User's Guide

Superelements User's Guide PDF Author: MSC Software
Publisher: MSC Software
ISBN: 1585240168
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 699

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Book Description


Entity and Identity

Entity and Identity PDF Author: P. F. Strawson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198250159
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
This work gathers selected essays by the author in two areas of philosophy. The first 12 pieces concern the philosophy of language, and the volume is completed by four studies in Kantian metaphysics.

English as a Lingua Franca for EFL Contexts

English as a Lingua Franca for EFL Contexts PDF Author: Nicos C. Sifakis
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
ISBN: 178892178X
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This book explores the interfaces of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) pedagogy. It presents the theoretical aspects of ELF, discusses issues and challenges that ELF raises for the EFL classroom, and demonstrates how EFL practitioners can make use of ELF theorizing for classroom instruction, teacher education, developing language learning materials, policymaking and testing and assessment. Accounts of innovative and practical pedagogical practices and researchers’ insights from diverse geographical, cultural and institutional contexts will inform and inspire EFL practitioners to reconsider their practices and adopt new techniques in order to meet their learners’ diverse communicative needs in international contexts.

Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge

Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge PDF Author: Torin Alter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198038305
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Consciousness has long been regarded as the biggest stumbling block for the view that the mind is physical. This volume collects thirteen new papers on this problem by leading philosophers including Torin Alter, Ned Block, David Chalmers, Daniel Dennett, John Hawthorne, Frank Jackson, Janet Levin, Joseph Levine, Martine Nida-Rümelin, Laurence Nemirow, Knut Nordby, David Papineau, and Stephen White.

Reference

Reference PDF Author: Jeanette K. Gundel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190450258
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The ability to produce and understand referring expressions is basic to human language use and human cognition. Reference comprises the ability to think of and represent objects (both real and imagined/fictional), to indicate to others which of these objects we are talking about, and to determine what others are talking about when they use a nominal expression. The articles in this volume are concerned with some of the central themes and challenges in research on reference within the cognitive sciences - philosophy (including philosophy of language and mind, logic, and formal semantics), theoretical and computational linguistics, and cognitive psychology. The papers address four basic questions: What is reference? What is the appropriate analysis of different referring forms, such as definite descriptions? How is reference resolved? and How do speaker/writers select appropriate referring forms, such as pronouns vs. full noun phrases, demonstrative vs. personal pronouns, and overt vs. null/zero pronominal forms? Some of the papers assume and build on existing theories, such as Centering Theory and the Givenness Hierarchy framework; others propose their own models of reference understanding or production. The essays examine reference from a number of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, informed by different research traditions and employing different methodologies. While the contributors to the volume were primarily trained in one of the four represented disciplines-computer science, linguistics, philosophy and psychology, and use methodologies typical of that discipline, each of them bridges more than one discipline in their methodology and/or their approach.